Al-Qaeda and the Libyan Rebellion

A new report from two French think tanks
concludes that jihadists have played a predominant role in the
eastern-Libyan rebellion against the rule of Moammar Qaddafi, and that
“true democrats” represent only a minority in the rebellion. The report,
furthermore, calls into question the justifications given for Western
military intervention in Libya, arguing that they are largely based on
media exaggerations and “outright disinformation.”

The sponsors of the report are the Paris-based International Center for
Research and Study on Terrorism and Aide to Victims of Terrorism
(CIRET-AVT) and the French Center for Research on Intelligence (CF2R).
The organizations sent a six-member expert mission to Libya to evaluate
the situation and consult with representatives on both sides of the
conflict. From March 31 to April 6, the mission visited the Libyan
capital of Tripoli and the region of Tripolitania; from April 19 to
April 25, it visited the rebel capital of Benghazi and the surrounding
Cyrenaica region in eastern Libya.

The
report identifies four factions among the members of the eastern Libyan
National Transitional Council (NTC). Apart from a minority of “true
democrats,” the other three factions comprise partisans of a restoration
of the monarchy that was overthrown by Qaddafi in 1969, Islamic
extremists seeking the establishment of an Islamic state, and former
fixtures of the Qaddafi regime who defected to the rebels for
opportunistic or other reasons.

There is a clear overlap between the Islamists and the monarchists,
inasmuch as the deposed King Idris I was himself the head of the Senussi
brotherhood, which the authors describe as “an anti-Western Muslim sect
that practices an austere and conservative form of Islam.” The
monarchists are thus, more precisely, “monarchists-fundamentalists.”

The most prominent of the defectors, the president of the NTC, Mustafa
Abdul Jalil, is likewise described by the authors as a “traditionalist”
who is “supported by the Islamists.” The authors point out that Jalil
played an important role in the “Bulgarian nurses affair,”
so called for five Bulgarian nurses who, along with a Palestinian
doctor, were charged with deliberately infecting hundreds of children
with AIDS in a hospital in Benghazi. As chair of the Appeals Court in
Tripoli, Jalil twice upheld the death penalty for the nurses. In 2007,
the nurses and the Palestinian doctor were released by the Libyan
government following negotiations in which French president Nicolas
Sarkozy’s then wife, Cecilia, played a highly publicized role.

The report describes members of the al-Qaeda-affiliated Libyan Islamic
Fighting Group as the “main pillar of the armed insurrection.” “Thus the
military coalition under NATO leadership is supporting a rebellion that
includes Islamic terrorists,” the authors write. Alluding to the major
role played by the Cyrenaica region in supplying recruits for al-Qaeda
in Iraq, they add, “No one can deny that the Libyan rebels who are today
supported by Washington were only yesterday jihadists killing American
GIs in Iraq.”

The full composition of the NTC has not been made public. But,
according to the authors, one avowed al-Qaeda recruiter, Abdul-Hakim
al-Hasadi, is himself a member of the NTC. (On al-Hasadi, see my March
25 report here.)
Al-Hasadi is described by the authors as the “leader of the Libyan
rebels.” Although Western media reports commonly say that he is in
charge of the defense of his home town of Darnah in eastern Libya, the
CIRET-CF2R report suggests that in mid-April, al-Hasadi left Cyrenaica
by boat in order to participate in the battle of Misrata. He is supposed
to have taken arms and 25 “well-trained fighters” with him. Misrata is
in western Libya, a mere 135 miles from Tripoli.

Regarding the effects of western military intervention in support of the rebels, the authors conclude:

Western intervention is in the process of creating more problems than
it resolves. It is one thing to force Qaddafi to leave. It is another
thing to spread chaos and destruction in Libya to this end and to
prepare the ground for fundamentalist Islam. The current moves risk
destabilizing all of North Africa, the Sahel, and the Middle East and
favoring the emergence of a new regional base for radical Islam and
terrorism.

What follows are some further translated highlights from the CIRET-CF2R report. The full report is available in French here.

On the Battle of Misrata:

Little by little, the city is starting to appear like a Libyan version
of Sarajevo in the eyes of the “free” world. The rebels from Benghazi
hope that a humanitarian crisis in Misrata will convince the Western
coalition to deploy ground troops in order to save the population.

. . . During the course of April, the NGO Human Rights Watch
published casualty figures concerning Misrata that reveal that, contrary
to the claims made in the international media, Qaddafi loyalist forces
have not massacred the residents of the town. During two months of
hostilities, only 257 persons — including combatants — were killed.
Among the 949 wounded, only 22 — or fewer than 3 percent — were women.
If regime forces had deliberately targeted civilians, women would have
represented around half of the victims.

It is thus now obvious that Western leaders — first and foremost,
President Obama — have grossly exaggerated the humanitarian risk in
order to justify their military action in Libya.

The real interest of Misrata lies elsewhere. . . . The control of this
port, at only 220 kilometers from Tripoli, would make it an ideal base
for launching a land offensive against Qaddafi.

On Benghazi and the Cyrenaica Region:

Benghazi is well-known as a hot-bed of religious extremism. The
Cyrenaica region has a long Islamist tradition going back to the Senussi
brotherhood. Religious fundamentalism is much more evident here than in
the western part of the country. Women are completely veiled from head
to foot. They cannot drive and their social life is reduced to a
minimum. Bearded men predominate. They often have the black mark of
piety on their foreheads [the “zebibah,” which is formed by repeated prostration during Muslim prayers].

It is a little-known fact that Benghazi has become over the last 15
years the epicenter of African migration to Europe. This traffic in
human beings has been transformed into a veritable industry, generating
billions of dollars. Parallel mafia structures have developed in the
city, where the traffic is firmly implanted and employs thousands of
people, while corrupting police and civil servants. It was only a year
ago that the Libyan government, with the help of Italy, managed to bring
this cancer under control.

Following the disappearance of its main source of revenue and the
arrest of a number of its bosses, the local mafia took the lead in
financing and supporting the Libyan rebellion. Numerous gangs and
members of the city’s criminal underworld are known to have conducted
punitive expeditions against African migrant workers in Benghazi and the
surrounding area. Since the start of the rebellion, several hundred
migrant workers — Sudanese, Somalis, Ethiopians, and Eritreans — have
been robbed and murdered by rebel militias. This fact is carefully
hidden by the international media.

On African “Mercenaries” and Tuaregs:

One of the greatest successes [of Qaddafi’s African policy] is his
“alliance” with the Tuaregs [a traditionally nomadic population spread
over the region of the Sahara], whom he actively financed and supported
when their movement was repressed in Mali in the 1990s.

. . . In 2005, Qaddafi accorded an unlimited residency permit to all
Nigerian and Malian Tuaregs on Libyan territory. Then, in 2006, he
called on all the tribes of the Sahara region, including Tuareg tribes,
to form a common entity to oppose terrorism and drug trafficking . . .

This is why hundreds of combatants came from Niger and Mali to help
Qaddafi [after the outbreak of the rebellion]. In their view, they were
indebted to Gaddafi and had an obligation to do so. . . .

Many things have been written about the “mercenaries” serving in the
Libyan security forces, but few of them are accurate. . . .

In recent years, foreigners have . . . been recruited [into the Libyan
army]. The phenomenon is entirely comparable to the phenomenon that one
observes on all levels of Libyan economic life. There is a very large
population of foreign workers in search of employment in the country.
The majority of the recruits originally come from Mali, Chad, Niger,
Congo, and Sudan. . . .

The information from rebel sources on supposed foreign intrusions
[i.e. mercenaries] is vague and should be treated with caution. . . .

On the other hand, it is a proven fact — and the mission was able to
confirm this itself — that Tuaregs from Niger came to Tripoli to offer
their support to Qaddafi. They did so spontaneously and out of a sense
of debt.

. . . It seems that Libyans of foreign origin and genuine volunteers
coming from foreign countries are being deliberately confused [in the
reports on “mercenaries”]. Whatever the actual number [of foreign
fighters], they form only a small part of the Libyan forces.

On the role of the international media:

Up until the end of February, the situation in western Libyan cities
was extremely tense and there were clashes — more so than in the east.
But the situation was the subject of exaggeration and outright
disinformation in the media. For example, a report that Libyan aircraft
bombed Tripoli is completely inaccurate: No Libyan bomb fell on the
capital, even though bloody clashes seem to have taken place in certain
neighborhoods. . . .

The consequences of this disinformation are clear. The U.N. resolution
[mandating intervention] was approved on the basis of such media
reports. No investigative commission was sent to the country. It is no
exaggeration to say that sensationalist reporting by al-Jazeera
influenced the U.N.

On the insurrection in Benghazi:

As soon as the protests started, Islamists and criminals immediately
took advantage of the situation in order to attack high-security prisons
outside Benghazi where their comrades were being held. Following the
liberation of their leaders, the rebellion attacked police stations and
public buildings. The residents of the city woke up to see the corpses
of policemen hanging from bridges.

Numerous atrocities were likewise committed against African workers,
who have all been treated as “mercenaries.” African workers were
expelled, murdered, imprisoned, and tortured.

On the insurrection in Zawiya (a town in western Libya):

During the three weeks [that the town was controlled by the rebels],
all public buildings were pillaged and set on fire. . . . Everywhere,
there was destruction and pillaging (of arms, money, archives). There
was no trace of combat, which confirms the testimony of the police [who
claim to have received orders not to intervene]. . . .

There were also atrocities committed (women who were raped, and some
police officers who were killed), as well as civilian victims during
these three weeks. . . . The victims were killed in the manner of the
Algerian GIA [Armed Islamic Group]: throats cut, eyes gauged out, arms
and legs cut off, sometimes the bodies were burned . . .

— John Rosenthal writes on European politics and transatlantic security issues. You can follow his work at www.trans-int.com or on Facebook.

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